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What a quaint, cohesive space to spark a discourse amongst and within myself (voyeurism permitted) and organize my thoughts surrounding Howl: the topic of my third research paper for advanced writing. The harvest of this till will be neither neat nor particularly pretty; but alas, productivity is the end of this means, perhaps progress, and power until dawn arches me towards there weary eyes validation I will.

Is the Essence of Howl American? Investigation: The paramount trait of an American artifact is the individual. Correction: Individual. Tension between the non-western lens and sense of self, the Individual rant, and breaking out of self type of spirituality. Howl is clever in that Ginsberg, through delving so personally into the tortured self taboo, exploits the inequalities and scars societal circumstances has inflicted upon him, and thus points back outward as a social critique like second hand smoke.

Potential Investigation: The structure and artifice of chaos in Howl. Howl is neatly bundled into three parts, categorized deliberately, and structures the chaos of the words’ meaning. Is this hypocritical to structure a poem which exploits and inadvertently critiques the products of systematic structure and beauracracy?

Notes from Blaine’s Office Hours:

Round I, Visit I:

Research Topic: “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg…

*Interjection*: i wonder if there has been any research done comparing this poetic epic to Virgil’s Alexander Romance, or Homer’s Iliad & Oddessey? The similarities are not unfounded. All are reflective, thus redacting multiple his stories and historical perspectives into a cohesive lens, and are kept alive as memory engrams branded into cultural memory. I should look. Anyway…

Research Process: MLA–> Search for scholarship on literature–> Representation of X ( still in the air) within the poem Howl.

Howl: Ginsberg uses language that recognize other cultures, allowing his words to cross culture, life experience, age and time with their meaning. Post-war 1950’s America was unflinchingly rigis, particularly in respect to gender roles. Masculinity was a straight-jacket. Howl as prose of a upper-middle class Jewish American white man was an act of liberation and deviance.

Howl as adopting other -other cultures, religions, the collision of Judeo-Christian imagery and eastern ideas- uses the dark, deviant, rich in authenticity Other to refract light and illuminate humanity onto the obsessively narrow defined white body, the All-American “I” and self devoid of holistic being. In foraging and gathering pieces of other cultures and the experiences of himself and his peers, Ginsberg was able to create a poetic epic that permeates the parameters of a NYT bestseller.

Is the Essence of Howl American? Investigation: The paramount trait of an American artifact is the individual. Correction: Individual. Tension between the non-western lens and sense of self, the Individual rant, and breaking out of self type of spirituality. Howl is clever in that Ginsberg, through delving so personally into the tortured self taboo, exploits the inequalities and scars societal circumstances has inflicted upon him, and thus points back outward as a social critique like second hand smoke.

Potential Investigation: The structure and artifice of chaos in Howl. Howl is neatly bundled into three parts, categorized deliberately, and structures the chaos of the words’ meaning. Is this hypocritical to structure a poem which exploits and inadvertently critiques the products of systematic structure and beauracracy?

What I need to do from here is simply (…ha) fill in these blanks.

My final research topic is the literary analysis of Howl, specifically identifying how XYZ influences KDH within the text, using the text as evidence. My annoated bibliography of sources are the following scholarly books, articles and expert contacts whose past research I can use to build up my own thesis or build upon: ——, ——-, – &——. My working question is DNDK . My working thesis is KJLJ.

Howl echos, Howl resounds, Howl guzzles the doppler effect for breakfast, bellows and burps the doppler effect for lunch, and drinks himself dizzy with the doppler effect for dinner. I need to narrow the lens of my topic because the orchestra of syllables resounds and it is astounding how dense potential for my paper is packed into this III part poem.

Potential Object Analysis Lenses:

A) The use of haiku in the making and within Howl.

B) The use of the other as adhesive to achieve a cohesive sense of self and the the use of self-sacrifice (martyrdom) is pointing the finger at oneself to enact the exact opposite and compose a publishable and perforable social critique.

2) The cross-cultural hypocrisy in declorating the self-destructive, vice ridden selves and glorifying eastern collectivistic philosophies, collectivism and spirituality WHILE writing very much from the writers eye, first word is “I” and contradicting the materialism, individualism, classism, uptight American “I” by exploiting himself as an “I”.